40% Surcharge on Freight In/Out of WA.

Imagine paying 40% more for a service, without any formal notice and it’s one of your company's biggest expenses. Last week, I found out purely by chance, that we were about to be slogged an additional 40% for all road freight we send from WA to surrounding states. Australia Post is calling road freight in and out of WA "WA Emergency Freight Service" and will be charged an additional 40% surcharge due to the ongoing issues caused by the recent flooding and train derailment. Fed up, I called my local radio station. Take a listen below.

Word on the Street weekly winner and Sunsafe Australia Director, Ben alerted Oliver Peterson and Perth Live listeners of the crazy 40% road freight surcharge for parcels coming in or out of WA.

With a busy Christmas period approaching, the increased charge has sent many businesses into a twist and left customers worried that their packages won’t arrive in time.

“I found out on Thursday after I had a Startrack inquiry – so my general inquiry was sorted and that’s when the rep said at that point from Monday ‘such and such,’ so I only found out by chance,” Ben told Oly.

“We spent the weekend trying to get the last 200 orders out that came in from Friday night to Sunday night just so we knew what those prices were at that point and got them out the door.”

So what are we going to do about the 40% surcharges?

Good thing for us, It doesn’t apply to everyone. For our customers who use the express post option, or our customers in WA and overseas, things haven’t changed. We have, however, applied a 10% increase to all national orders to help cover the costs, we will bear the brunt of the additional costs until next year when we can re-evaluate the situation.

We want our customers to be able to access affordable sun protection products and not be stung by exorbitant freight rates. We think we’ve found a good balance.

The 40% surcharge did kick in this morning. It applies to all eParcel, Parcel Send and Startrack Express services. These are the online platforms that small and big business use to dispatch their products on the Australia Post and Startrack networks. It does not affect normal retail services at your local Australia Post or MyPost Business customers. So basically, this affects small and big businesses in WA and businesses outside of WA that ship into WA.

Australia Post is calling road freight in and out of WA "WA Emergency Freight Service" and will be charged an additional 40% surcharge due to the ongoing issues caused by the recent flooding and train derailment.

The WA Emergency Freight Service will come into effect for any parcels lodged and/or manifested from Monday, 28 November 2022.

Australia Post has also bought forward the Christmas cutoff times quite considerably.

The new dates are as follows:
· Deliveries to WA from VIC, QLD, TAS, NSW and ACT: lodgement by 8 December.
· Deliveries to NSW and ACT from WA: lodgement by 6 December.
· Deliveries to VIC, TAS and QLD from WA: lodgement by 5 December.